Friday 5 August 2011 10.04 EDT
First published on Friday 5 August 2011 10.04 EDT

There's nothing like shooting a mass brawl in a public street to break the enigma of a film production. Up until this week, Christopher Nolan's final Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, had been shrouded in secrecy. Now there's this third-party footage of Christian Bale's Batman taking on Tom Hardy's Bane during a pitched battle in front of Gotham police HQ (filmed in Pittsburgh earlier this week). It's the first time we've seen the characters on screen together, bar the few fleeting milliseconds of last month's teaser trailer.

The good news is that the caped crusader seems to be holding his own against the hulking villain. I'm loving the Bane mask: there's something quite hideous about a maw filled with what appear to be gun cartridges. Nolan's production designers have once again pulled off the trick of inventing a costume that looks like something a criminally inclined brute with a penchant for theatricality might have in the wardrobe. Hardy cuts a genuinely frightening figure and, crucially, doesn't look silly. Just as the Scarecrow and the Joker appeared stripped of all their cartoon campness in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Bane looks nothing like his gimpsuit-sporting counterpart in the abhorrent Batman and Robin. That he doesn't look an awful lot like his comic-book counterpart will hopefully not upset too many people. Nolan has invented a world for these characters that feels close to our own reality – and brightly coloured lycra bodysuits are the exception, not the rule.

"It's not the guy in Joel Schumacher's film," confirmed Hardy himself in a recent interview with Total Film. "I think Bane's fucking cool so I'm really excited to play him. Any time you put something over your face, you're going to adopt a personality and a physicality that has nothing to do with acting. It allows a performance to be free."

One thing I doubt we'll see before The Dark Knight Rises arrives in cinemas next year is Anne Hathaway in costume as Catwoman (UPDATE: The official Dark Knight Rises site is hosting this pic (thanks to ewjackson for pointing this out). It could be Catwoman, or it might just be a Nolan ruse).

Officially, Hathaway's cast as Selina Kyle and Nolan hasn't revealed whether Kyle will make the transformation during The Dark Knight Rises. It would be a strange old Batman film if she didn't, but Nolan has an idiosyncratic way of doing things, and Hathaway has sworn not to give anything away. "I signed a blood oath," she told Total Film. "Bloody thumbprint on the paper."

What we do have is a first glimpse of Marion Cotillard as Wayne Enterprises boardmember Miranda Tate. The picture shows her sitting on one of Batman's tumblers, which seems to be painted in camouflage rather than the traditional Batblack. Did Bane blow up the Batmobile, forcing Bruce Wayne to use a spare? And why is Tate getting involved in the action if she's merely a businesswoman? The suspicion persists that she might just be Talia al Ghul, daughter of the villainous Ra's al Ghul from Batman Begins, but it remains unsubstantiated.

If Nolan can manage to keep the twists and turns of The Dark Knight Rises under wraps until the film arrives on the big screen, he'll have pulled off a remarkable feat. But then, this is the director of Inception, The Dark Knight, The Prestige and Memento: it won't be the first time he's mastered mystique.